Early Maternal Employment and Children's Academic and Behavioral Skills in Australia and the United Kingdom

Lone parents' employment policy and adolescents' socioemotional development: Quasi-experimental evidence from a UK reform

Studies suggest that welfare-to-work programmes increase lone mother's employment, but their impact on child and adolescent socioemotional development is unclear. The lone parent obligation (LPO) reform introduced a requirement for lone mothers entitled to unconditional Income Support (IS) to seek paid work actively as a condition to receive benefits. We use data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study to examine the impact of work search requirements for lone parents on child and adolescent socioemotional development. We apply a difference-in-differences approach that exploits gradual changes from 2008 to 2017 in children's maximum eligibility age to receive IS and assess effects on child and adolescent Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) scores. We find that the LPO reform led to a ten-percentage point increase in lone mothers' employment but no change in the risk of family poverty. The reform led to a small but statistically significant increase in adolescents' SDQ scores, which indicated worse mental health and was largely driven by increased emotional problems. It also led to an increase in mothers' distress and poor self-rated health, and mothers' reports that time spent with children was insufficient. Our findings highlight the need to consider trade-offs between employment gains and child and adolescent socioemotional development in assessing the net impact of welfare-to-work policies targeting lone parents.

Early Maternal Employment And Children's School Readiness: Changing Associations Over Time?

This study assessed whether the links between early maternal employment and children's school readiness have changed over time. Research has examined mothers' labor force participation and its associations with children's well-being. As maternal employment has become more normative, these associations may have changed, particularly among subgroups of families. Data come from two large, longitudinal samples of children born in the U.S. in 1991 (N = 1042) and in 2001 (N = 7850). OLS regression models estimated changes between cohorts in the associations between early maternal employment and children's reading/language skills, math skills, and conduct problems at age 4 and school entry. Despite similar prevalence rates of maternal employment by 9 months between the 1991 and 2001 samples, there were differences in the demographic characteristics of mothers in each employment pattern over the decade. Examining associations between the early maternal employment patterns and children's school readiness, results revealed that full time employment by 9 months in comparison to non-employment shifted to having more positive associations with reading/language skills at age 4 and school entry from 1991 to 2001. However, full time maternal employment by 9 months was associated with children's higher conduct problems at school entry in 1991 and 2001, and by 2001, part time employment had similar repercussions. The results differed by family income. There have been small changes in the associations between early maternal employment and children's school readiness over time.

Maternal employment and children's socio-emotional outcomes: an Australian longitudinal study

OBJECTIVES

Among children, poor socio-emotional functioning leads to poor health and well-being during childhood and later in life, and so understanding its social determinants is important. This study's objective is to examine how maternal employment influences children's socio-emotional outcomes in an Australian sample of families with two biological parents, testing the mediating role of maternal mental health, parenting practices, and parental income.

METHODS

We analyze six waves of panel data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 7524 children, 29,701 observations) using random-effect models.

RESULTS

Children of employed mothers display better socio-emotional outcomes than children of non-employed mothers, though the effect magnitude is only moderate. Associations are stronger for internalizing than externalizing problems, and not mediated by parental mental health, parenting practices, or household income.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings can inform sociopolitical debates on the social value of maternal labor force participation and its impacts on children. They suggest that incentivizing maternal employment should bear no detrimental consequences on their children's socio-emotional functioning. The different associations found for children's internalizing and externalizing problems stress the value of distinguishing these constructs.

The Relation between Maternal Work Hours and Primary School Students' Affect in China: The Role of the Frequency of Mother-Child Communication (FMCC) and Maternal Education

Background: Although substantial evidence suggests that maternal work hours may have a negative effect on children’s cognitive development, the link between maternal work hours and children’s affect remains unclear. Some studies have observed that non-daytime maternal work hours are associated with more emotional problems among children. However, few studies have focused on the effects of maternal work hours on workdays and non-workdays. Therefore, this study separately investigated the relation between maternal work hours on workdays and on non-workdays and explored the mediating role of the frequency of mother-child communication (FMCC) and the moderating role of maternal education.

Method: Using cluster sampling, this study selected 879 students in grades 4–6 at two primary schools in the Hebei and Shandong provinces in China and their mothers as the study subjects. A multi-group structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the relations between maternal work hours, FMCC and children’s affect and the moderating effect of maternal education.

Results: (1) Non-college-educated mothers’ work hours on workdays negatively predicted FMCC, but there was no such effect for college-educated mothers; (2) non-workday work hours of all employed mothers negatively predicted FMCC; (3) the FMCC of all employed mothers positively predicted children’s positive affect; (4) the FMCC of college-educated mothers negatively predicted children’s negative affect although there was no such relation for non-college-educated mothers; (5) there was a significant mediating effect of FMCC on the relation between maternal work hours and children’s affect only for non-college-educated mothers; and (6) the workday work hours of non-college-educated mothers positively predicted children’s negative affect, but this correlation was negative for college-educated mothers.

Conclusion: Maternal work hours have a marginally significant negative effect on children’s affect through FMCC only for non-college-educated mothers. Compared with non-college-educated mothers, college-educated mothers more easily compensate for the loss of communication opportunities caused by increased work hours on workdays, and children with college-educated mothers benefit more from this communication. However, compensating for the loss of communication opportunities caused by increased work hours on non-workdays is difficult for all employed mothers.